He watched her stand over the unimpressive plot of sparse ground. He could nearly smell her uneasiness, nervousness. She should feel this way. A cemetery at dusk was no place for a girl like her, and he was why. He knew he would have her before he sees the waning moon set tonight. She was already his prey, she merely hasn't realized her fate yet.
He knew her well from Annandale and had faith enough in her self-absorption not to take pains to disguise his footfalls unduly. He could be as silent as the wind, he assured himself, but his considerable strength could be better spent elsewhere in the hunt. He relished the hunt most of all, even more than the moment of capture. Almost more, he amended. In his mortal life, he had once read that packs of chimpanzees would chase a monkey for dozens of miles only to dash its head against a rock and gleefully eat its brains. They didn't need to prolong the chase, they didn't even need to eat the monkey's brain for sustenance, but it gave them joy to do so. This is the joy he would have in taking her and making her a part of him always.
As he traveled through the forest at the edge of the graveyard, keeping his prize in sight, a thorny branch slid over his arm, effortlessly cutting though his thin, black vinyl shirt. He unraveled an exotic and improbable curse under his breath to a deity that couldn't care less, but reveled in the garnet gleam of blood, even if it was his own. He found no sight more beautiful, more sensual, than fresh blood in the moonlight.
Ashlei rose from the grave she visited and walked down the rocky dirt path that connected this secluded area of the cemetery to the road. She would never make it to the bottom gates alive, but she had no way of knowing that her routine had been noticed. She was, as the Vampire Matt thought, absorbed, but not in herself. She had taken it upon herself to visit his grave at least once a month, usually on a Friday evening like she had tonight. It wasn't that she really knew the grave's owner, Virgil, but couldn't stand the thought of no one visiting him. People had at first, just after his murder. It was reported in all the papers and there was the predictable slew of attention. When that ebbed, so did the visitors. His soul may have been consigned to the kingdom of heaven, but she couldn't get over the idea that he laid lonely in a box six feet underground. Virgil's wasn't the only grave she visited; a few of her family members were buried in this same cemetery. She had about twenty graves she visited when she got the chance. She would pray over them, petitioning Christ and the saints to relate her wishes, to tell the souls of the departed that someone still cared about them on Earth. It might not be enough, but she hoped it meant something.
Though she never personally knew Virgil, she had felt a connection. When she saw his face in the papers, she recognized him instantly from Annandale University. For weeks after that random shooting, it had obsessed her because it so easily could have been her. She passed that way a few minutes before it happened. They had never even spoken, which made her vigil for him all the closer to Christ's mission. She would tend to the souls of the least of man, cry for the death of a boy she would never know. In another world, had he not died so young, she hoped they would have been friends.
None of her friends, not even the campus Christian coalition, really understood how deeply this death affected her. Of course, everyone was spooked by it; Annandale was a peaceful place, the only real conflict occurring between the art and engineering majors and that was more a healthy competition than anything malevolent. His death opened her eyes and made her feel so much closer to Jesus. In Virgil's death, she was reborn. After the first visit to his grave, she gave up drinking and the infrequent cigarette, reconfirmed her occasionally broken promise to remain pure until marriage. She liked to think she had adopted Virgil as a guardian angel and she could use every supernatural protector she could get, though they would do her no good against the attacker waiting for her.
Matt descended the path with her, watching the unsteady and alluring gait of her hips. The shoes she wore were fashionable and useless. She stumbled and gasped, grabbing the overhanging bough of a gnarled tree for support. He could almost laugh at her ignorance of him, but there would be a time for that. She looked delectable, chocolate brown hair, curvy figure that remain despite dieting, and no make-up to cry off. She didn't need it, even if he could better imagine kissing her hard lips as the lipstick smeared against his face. Just the though of that red smear gave him a charge. Her nails were long, something of which he would have to be careful. He couldn't avoid any evidence of her on his body and, more, he could not return to his lair with claw marks on his face. He felt sure that he could hold her arms to the ground while he took her, she might simply acquiesce once she witnessed his strength and give him everything he wanted. It had yet to ever happen, but there was always a first time.
As he was about to spring out of the woods and claim her, the straps on his bondage pants snagged on something. Turning around, he saw a tall, androgyne stepping on them. The figure rasped, "You wouldn't be thinking of hurting that poor girl, would you, possum?"
In this person's presence, he was revolted with awe. "N-no, I was just…"
But he could not finish, as the figure had placed both hands on his face and twisted his head until there was a snap. He fell to the ground like a puppet, chains instead of strings torn free.
"She's ours," the figure finished to deaf ears, wiping the boy's pancake make-up off her hands and walking resolutely toward her breakfast.
Red Hook is a serialized novel being written by Xen, also known as Thomm Quackenbush. It didn't happen to you, your best friend, or his cousin. Why? Because it didn't happen. All persons, living, dead, undead, or unliving are purely coincidental. Any real persons are used fictiously. What you are about to read is not a news broadcast. No portion of this book may be distributed without the expressed written consent of Xen. Feel free to rope your friends into reading it, though. Do it or I start shooting PuppyOrphans.
He is published by Cave Drawing Ink and syndicated throughout the internet.
